Bibi's Vision of Peace vs. Mahmoud's I won't negotiate: Which do you prefer?

In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, antrhem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence" Benjamin Netanyahu (the guy who the press and the EU always calls obstructionist and extremist)

We have been listenting to BB for many years now. Did not hear any "Vision of peace" from him. He simply says few things only to contradict himself on it.

For example if he visit the US, he would say he wants to see a strong Palestine etc. And you will see within days he orders for more land (Stealing land from Palestinians) for "Settlers". This is not seen as a "Peace proposal" by people who wan to see peace in the holy land.

If you don't believe Bibi (who in American terms would be a centrist Democrat not a conservative - we leave that ground open for the manifestly insane) then "call his bluff". He said he would negotiate anytime, anywhere. If the Mahmoud Abbas and the PA wanted to negotiate (which they clearly do not) all they would have to do is say let's negotiate. Then we would find out if Bibi is bluffing. Personally, I do not think he is.

But then it is probaly the case of "If you knew Bibi, like I know Bibi . . ." You will never be convinced of his good intentions because you flat out want to believe he has none and you wish to blame him for the failings of others. (goodness knows he has enough of his own you could blame him for without blaming other people's garbage on him)

If you don't believe Bibi (who in American terms would be a centrist Democrat not a conservative - we leave that ground open for the manifestly insane) then "call his bluff". He said he would negotiate anytime, anywhere. If the Mahmoud Abbas and the PA wanted to negotiate (which they clearly do not) all they would have to do is say let's negotiate. Then we would find out if Bibi is bluffing. Personally, I do not think he is.

But then it is probaly the case of "If you knew Bibi, like I know Bibi . . ." You will never be convinced of his good intentions because you flat out want to believe he has none and you wish to blame him for the failings of others. (goodness knows he has enough of his own you could blame him for without blaming other people's garbage on him)

I agree with Rocket. Either prove that Bibi is not interested in peace or accept that Abbas is not interested in peace. Either way, the answer is simple. Sit down and negotiate and see what transpires.

The difference you are missing is that Israel has made all sorts of concessions including giving up vast tracts of Israel to Egypt, Jordan and the PA, self rule to over 95% of the Arab Palestinians, etc... while the Arab Palestinians have given exactly NOTHING. Time for the Arabs to start making concessions, don't you think?

It may be the case that equally neither side wants to negotiate but mostly what I see and hear are calls for Israel to be more forthcoming with concessions in order to encourage the Palestinians to come to the table. I rarely see anyone advocating that the Palestinians should offer more concessions in order to encourage Israel to come to the negotiating table. So I am not convinced that the problem is that both sides equally don't want to negotiate.

In an unscientific exercise, I wanted to test out whether my perceptions as stated above have some real world basis. So I googled the quote "pressure on Palestinians" and got 315,000 hits and the quote "Pressure on Israel" and got 1,770,000 hits. ("Pressure on Palestine only got 26,400 hits but I didn't think that was a fair comparison since there is no Palestine.) As I wrote, this is not scientific proof of anything but I think it does give an indication that if both sides are equally reluctant to negotiate they are being treated quite differently about it.

Subtract from your 300.000 'pressure on Palestinians' hits those which refer to pressure exerted by Israel, Habesor...

I don't think public and media perception is much of an issue. Once things get moving, the media will eagerly listen. As long as nothing is moving, they'll fill in these blanks with prejudice. It's noise and irrelevant.

Bibi doesn't come across as any sort of "visionary" at all, that is where the title of this thread is naïve, I think. He's a funny person who likes to be the decider, not who likes to actually decide. Or?

As an Israeli who has voted for the other guy in every election where Bibi was the candidate, and who doesn't expect to vote for him in the next election either, I would not describe him as a visionary. Most of the politicians here in Israel are not very visionary but are most concerned about holding onto their elected positions or advancing to a higher one. In truth I don't place much value on visionaries as they mostly spend their time immersed in visions fooling themselves if not the general populace. We have had visionaries in the Zionist movement like Herzl and Ben Gurion but their value, in the end, was not in their visions but in the practical accomplishments they made along the way.

Having a bunch of politicians competing with each other may not be very pleasing aesthetically but our experience here in Israel, is that it tends to get the job done. Where as the great charismatic visionary dictators who were supposed to make the trains run on time in the Arab world, aside from building monuments to themselves, ended up damaging their societies more than modernizing them.

Having said all of that, and you may agree or disagree with those pontifical reveries of mine written above, I still believe that the root cause of this conflict, or at least one of the main root causes, is the Palestinian denial of the Jews' right to a state of our own. This goes back to the very beginnings of Palestinian Arab nationalism and as a consequence is a major part of its self-definition. Zionism does not contain as a constituent of its self-definition the denial of the right of Palestinians to a state of their own, though there are a number of Zionists who see such a state as a danger to the state of Israel and justify their opposition on that basis. (There are also some Zionists who believe that all of the land belongs to the Jewish people but these are no longer in the main stream of Zionism, though these visionaries continue to exist.) Abbas's inability to negotiate with Bibi has nothing to do with settlement expansion; in fact, if you stop and think about it, the quickest way to end settlement expansion and even roll back some of the expansion that has taken place, is to negotiate a quick peace agreement with Israel. Abbas cannot negotiate an agreement with Israel as long as his competitors in Hamas can label him a traitor for acquiescing to the existence of a Jewish state of any dimensions. And, even more important, such a label would not be politically relevant if it didn't resonate with the Palestinian population.